cirque

Also known as corrie, cwm

thumb|Two cirques with semi-permanent snowpatches near Abisko National Park, Sweden thumb|Upper Thornton Lake Cirque in North Cascades National Park, U.S.

AI overview

A cirque is a bowl-shaped valley found in mountainous areas, typically carved by glaciers over time. These formations are notable geographical features that often retain snow and ice, making them visually distinctive parts of alpine landscapes.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Wikidata facts

Subclass of: valley
Image: Cirque-de-navacelles.JPG

Show 7 more facts

Commons category: Cirques
Commons gallery: Cirque
on focus list of Wikimedia project: Wikipedia:Vital articles/Level/4
exact match: purl.obolibrary.org/obo/ENVO_00000155
model item: glacial cirque
name: Gonten
has cause: glacial denudation

Sources (5)

via Wikidata · CC0

~8 min read

Encyclopedic overview

7 sections

Contents

Formation
Glacial-erosion
Fluvial-erosion
Notable cirques
See also
References
External links

thumb|Two cirques with semi-permanent snowpatches near Abisko National Park, Sweden thumb|Upper Thornton Lake Cirque in North Cascades National Park, U.S.

A ' (; from the Latin word ) is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie' (from , meaning a pot or cauldron) and ; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform arising from fluvial erosion.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “cirque” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.